When we went to Van­cou­ver a cou­ple of months ago one of the most mem­o­rable things was see­ing the adorable sea otters.

*heart eyes x1000*

So when the nice folks at Yarn Cana­da sent me some Red Heart Scrub­by Cot­ton to try out and write a blog post about (they even sent can­dy and a nice note, aren’t they awe­some?), I knew exact­ly what to make :)

A bath otter, float­ing on its back, hold­ing your soap! XD

Actu­al­ly, our test shows that the otter sinks after the hold­ing the soap for a while… but still, it’s fun to see it float­ing on its back.

It makes a great bath toy, and a soap saver. If you have a tiny bit of soap left just stick it in it’s back pock­et and scrub away :D

This cot­ton yarn is super absorbent and soft­er than reg­u­lar poly­ester scrub­by yarn, so it makes a great wash cloth. 

 

One skein of scrub­by makes 2 otters with plen­ty left­over for a knit wash cloth, which is quite eco­nom­i­cal for hol­i­day gift-making. 

If you make it with reg­u­lar wool or acrylic, the pat­tern would also make a cute hand pup­pet! :D

I used:

One skein each of Red Heart Scrub­by Cot­ton in tan and loofa

A bit of brown acrylic yarn for embroi­der­ing facial features

5.5 mm hook

Tapes­try needle

Note:

The otter is worked from top down in the round in the top part, then worked back and forth in the low­er part and seamed at the sides in order to cre­ate an open­ing in the back. Then arms and legs are cro­cheted sep­a­rate­ly and sewn on. Ears are cro­cheted direct­ly onto the head. The tex­ture of the yarn makes it a bit chal­leng­ing to see the stitch­es, and it is some­times a bit dif­fi­cult to undo stitch­es, but it’s great for blend­ing in yarn ends and sewn seams. This pat­tern is writ­ten with this in mind and the struc­ture is made as sim­ple as possible. 

This pat­tern requires know­ing how to do colour change in mid row. If you’re not famil­iar, please check out this handy tuto­r­i­al by Moo­gly :) 

Pat­tern:

Head & upper body:

Round 1: with tan, 10 sc in mag­ic ring, don’t join in the round.

Round 2: 2 sc in each sc (20 sc).

Round 3: [1 sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc] around (30 sc).

Round 4: 1 sc in each sc around.

Repeat round 4 until piece is 3.5″ tall.

Mid-sec­tion area:

6 sc, attach loofa (white), 3 sc in white, switch back to tan.

sc in each sc around using tan, until the sc before the first white stitch in the row below, switch to white, sc in the next 5 sc using white, wrap the white strand and the work­ing tan yarn in the stitch­es as you go, like so…

Switch back to tan and 1 sc in each sc using tan, until the stitch before the first white stitch in the row below, switch to white, sc in next 7 sc using white, switch back to tan.

Con­tin­ue cro­chet­ing in the round, using tan in tan stitch­es and white in white stitch­es until there are 4 more rows with white stitches.

Then, sc in each sc around using tan until the first white stitch in the row below, sc with tan in first white stitch, switch to white, sc with white in next 5 sc, switch back to tan.

sc in each sc around around using tan until first white stitch in the row below, sc with tan in the first white stitch, switch to white, sc with white in the next 3 sc, switch back to tan, fas­ten off white. sc in next 6 sc using tan, turn, leave remain­ing stitch­es unworked.

Low­er body:

Low­er body is worked back and forth in rows over 15 stitches.

Row 1: ch 1 (does not count as sc), sc in next 15 sc, turn.

Rows 2–8: repeat row 1, leave a long tail for sewing, fas­ten off.

With right side fac­ing, fold low­er body piece up in half, sew side seams together.

Turn low­er body piece right side out. At the back open­ing, sew togeth­er the top and bot­tom stitch­es clos­est to the seam on each side, like the pic­ture below. To sew the oth­er stitch­es clos­est to the oth­er seam, I did­n’t fas­ten off, I just wove the work­ing yarn through the top edge of the bot­tom part of the open­ing, and actu­al­ly cinched / gath­ered the stitch­es a bit to make the open­ing more sturdy.

Fas­ten off and weave in ends. The back would look like this…

Arms (make 2):

Row 1: Using tan, ch 6, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next 4 ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 1 (does not count as sc), sc in next 5 sc, turn.

Rows 3–5: repeat row 2, leav­ing a long tail for sewing, fas­ten off.

Fold arm in half so the first row meets the last row, using the yarn tail, sew along side and top of arm using whip stitch, then sew arm to body along the side, also using whip stitch.

Legs (make 2):

Row 1: Using tan, ch 6, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next 4 ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 1 (does not count as sc), sc in next 5 sc, turn.

Rows 3–7: repeat row 2, leav­ing a long tail for sewing, fas­ten off.

Fold leg in half so the first row meets the last row, using the yarn tail, sew along side and top of arm using whip stitch, then sew arm to body along the bot­tom of body, also using whip stitch.

Tail:

Row 1: ch 12, hdc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in next 2 ch, sc to end of row, turn.

Row 2: ch 1 (does not count as sc), sc in each sc, hdc in each hdc, turn.

Row 3: ch 2 (counts as hdc), hdc in next 2 hdc, sc in each sc, leav­ing a tail for sewing, fas­ten off.

Sew tail to edge of bot­tom park of open­ing on back using whip stitch, like so.

Ears:

Insert hook through a stitch on the side of the head.

Pull up a loop of yarn and secure yarn.

Insert hook in a stitch to the left.

Pull up a loop, then yo and pull through both loops on hook, thus mak­ing an sc. Make 4 more sc in the same stitch, then sl st in a stitch to the left in head.

Repeat for the oth­er ear on the oth­er side of head.

Embroi­der eyes, nose and mouth with acrylic yarn. Fas­ten off and weave in ends.

Ta-da!

As usu­al, let me know if you have any ques­tions about the pattern! 

Spe­cial thanks to the nice peo­ple at Yarn Cana­da for think­ing of me and send­ing the yarn :) Please do check out their web­site if you live in Cana­da, free ship­ping for orders over $45, or flat rate of $5!

Hap­py crafting!